President, Overseas Alumni Association of
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Northern California)
...
Dear Joseph,
The current controversy of revising the OAA-CUHK Bylaws, the issue of anonymous voting and the ongoing insulting comments and provoking wrongful accusations from certain directors are making it uneasy to work with those directors. My wife, Amy Kwock (鄧瑋), and I feel that it is no longer enjoyable and challenging to serve as OAA Directors. Please accept our resignations, effective immediately.
There is a member of The Internet Committee ready to take over the OAA-CUHK website. This is a great relief as I feel comfortable to release the long-overdue duty. Please accept my resignation as the webmaster also, effective immediately. The next webmaster will take full responsibility for deploying a new website and for managing related functions; the lease for the current website ends in July. I will not be involved in any function or question from now on.
Not too long ago, Edward Lee (李海滋) resigned his OAA presidency. I begged him to "任勞任怨" to stay on as OAA President. In deep agony, Edward responded "Pardon me to weight my health/life above a detrimental job". Ironically, his only option then has now become mine. What an enlightening and inspiring precedent!
Sincerely yours,
Tony Kwock (郭堂)
Founding President, Overseas Alumni Association of
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Northern California)
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July 13, 2012
Subject: Recap of My Service to OAA and Motivation for
My Resignation
Dear All,
I enjoyed as the president of Chung
Chi College Student Union during my school day and being the founding president
of the OAA since 1981. During the past
thirty years, devoting my time and financial resources, together with the
support of the local CUHK alumni, we have bridged alumni in a foreign land to a
happy home, enjoying fellowship. Over
the many years, in various roles as either a leader or a member, I have been
always open for suggestions to improve the OAA and myself. Our work was finally noticed. In 2007, the chairman of the CUHK Honorary
Fellowship Committee wanted to nominate me for the honorary fellowship. I declined his offer as it would put myself
apart from our members and distract my dedication to OAA in the Bay. In a word, I refused to glorify myself.
As a webmaster, I have dutifully kept
it lively with fair coverage on significant news from members. Above all, there is an “Opinion web page” on
the OAA web, by which alumni can reflect their feeling about the way that we
conducted the OAA affairs. If they do
not like their pictures appeared on the OAA web, they can request to remove
them.
The following background information
derived from the recent emails of the OAA directors is for your information.
One of
the directors proposed and passed a revision of OAA
bylaw to get rid of some directors using anonymous voting in order to create
room for new recruits. This
is not necessary since the OAA bylaw has provision to enlarge the board of
directors, we can expand the board of directors to recruit more fresh energy to the board.
At the same time, we can retain the devoted and experience
directors. With a large base of active
alumni on board, the functions of OAA can easily have large participants. Using “decision by the majority vote”
approach in the “OAA by-law revision committee” sounds democratic. Sometimes, it is just
“pseudo-democratic”. A “win-win”
strategy to resolve conflicts is to “seek common ground while reserving
differences”. A manipulative individual
can use the name of “The Board” as a majority vote to fulfill a wish/justify an
issue.
Another
director, an old timer of OAA, rich in imagination
and pessimism, slanders me with untrue stories (his email dated June 10, 2012),
using “founding president” to glorify myself, self-claiming as first class
members of OAA, etc. I am the founding
president of OAA. That is the fact. I have never claimed that I am the “first
class members of OAA” as Frank asserted in his email.
A new
director joined the Internet Committee
recently and immediately demanded the password to manage OAA web without proper
knowledge of the system. While I, as the
webmaster, need to safe-guard the web, I suggest keeping the OAA web-site
intact while we are searching for ways to improve it. His accusation “difficult to work with me” and blackmail
with his resignation are really
disturbing me.
Have a good day!
Tony Kwock (郭堂)
Founding President, Overseas Alumni
Association ofThe Chinese University of Hong Kong (Northern California)
